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The latest issue of Monitor, the Constitution Unit’s regular newsletter, was published today. When the previous issue came out in November, the lack of a withdrawal agreement was a cause of great uncertainty. Four months later, a deal has been reached with the EU, but it has failed to gain parliamentary support and what will happen on 29 March remains an open question. As our editorial team says below, the current crisis is testing our constitution on multiple fronts and the strain is starting to show. This post is the opening article from Monitor 71; you can download the full issue (as well as past editions) here.

This Monitor appears less than three weeks before the date set for the UK to leave the European Union. Remarkably, the form that Brexit will take – indeed, whether it will happen at all – remains highly uncertain. The coming days and weeks will be crucial in determining the UK’s future direction. Brexit has placed the UK’s political and constitutional system under great strain. That is partly because it is so contested – dividing the main parties internally and risking alienation between the popular majority who backed Leave in 2016 and the parliamentary majority who opposed it. The 2017 general election added to these challenges by resulting in a minority government. Meanwhile, the political task is immensely complex and the stakes exceptionally high.

This strain has manifested itself in numerous ways. The Independent Group (TIG), created on 18 February (see page 12) and currently including 11 former Labour and Conservative MPs, is the largest breakaway from the main parties since the ‘Gang of Four’ founded the Council for Social Democracy – precursor to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) – in 1981. Labour disquiet is widespread, and Deputy Leader Tom Watson has proposed an intra-party grouping of social democrats to stem further defections. The Conservatives have their own party-within-a-party, in the strongly pro-Brexit European Research Group. After many false starts, it forced a vote of no confidence in Theresa May’s leadership of the party in December, which she won by 200 votes to 117. Continue reading →

The prospect of a poll in Northern Ireland about Irish unification, provided for by the Good Friday Agreement and often termed a ‘border poll’, is now widely discussed. But the provisions and wider implications of the law and the Agreement are little explored. The Constitution Unit is considering a project to examine this, and Alan Whysall here gives an overview of the key questions.

Support for a united Ireland appears to be rising. There is little to suggest a majority for unity now, but in the context of Brexit provoking serious strains it might arise. This blog is mainly about process. But the real world risks are high. An early poll, particularly if it takes place in a political atmosphere that is strained following a hard Brexit, could seriously destabilise both parts of Ireland, and put at risk the political gains of recent decades.

Current outlook on border polls

Northern Ireland Unionists have largely ignored or dismissed the prospect of a poll. But the former First Minister Peter Robinson last year urged unionism to prepare.

Nationalists, while looking forward to a poll, have often been vague as to when this might happen. Sinn Féin now appears to favour one immediately after a no deal Brexit. The SDLP propose there should first be a forum to establish the shape of a united Ireland.

The Irish government has been hesitant. The Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has suggested that raising the prospect now is disruptive and destructive, and has in the past questioned the wisdom of Irish unity founded on a 50% plus one vote in Northern Ireland.

The UK government has consistently rejected ideas of any early poll. But during recent debate on a no deal Brexit, leaks have emerged of its apparent fears that such an outcome would trigger a poll, dismissed by unionists as ‘Project Fear’.

With just two months until exit day, it remains unclear what form Brexit will take. Could citizens’ assemblies provide some of the answers to the questions politicians have yet to resolve? Alan Renwick outlines the scenarios in which a citizens’ assembly could take place, and what it would need to be a success.

The idea that a citizens’ assembly could help resolve the Brexit impasse is picking up wide support. A diverse group of notable figures proposed it just before Christmas. MPs including Labour’s Stella Creasy and Lisa Nandy and the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas have backed it. So too has the Guardiannewspaper. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has put forward a plan for citizens’ assemblies as part of ‘a process of nationwide consultation and reflection’, which was endorsed in a post on this blog last week.

That citizens’ assemblies are gaining support as a way of reinvigorating our democracy is enormously welcome. A citizens’ assembly is a group of around 50–200 people who are randomly selected from the general public to reflect the make-up of the population as a whole. They meet over several weekends to learn about and deliberate on a policy question before reaching recommendations. As an excellent piece by Leo Benedictus in last week’s Guardian illustrates, such assemblies enable serious, informed reflection on important policy matters by members of the public. They foster conversations among people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives who normally wouldn’t even meet each other. If they are integrated effectively into the wider policy-making process, they can transform the quality of public debate and decision-making.

2018 has been an interesting year for the UK constitution, its institutions and those involved in studying or working within them. As the year draws to a close, blog editor Dave Busfield-Birch offers a roundup of the most popular blogs of the year, as well as a look at the reach of the blog through the lens of its readership statistics.

Obviously, Brexit has made this a very interesting time to work in political science, and the blog has benefited both in terms of increased general interest as a result, but also because there are niche topics being discussed in public now that would have generated little interest in other years. Few, for example, would have predicted in May 2016 that whether or not a motion in the House of Commons was amendable would become a hot political topic.

Below are our most popular blogs from the past year, as well as two personal selections from me, at the end of my first twelve months as blog editor.

This was obviously a tough decision, but if you were to ask me for my favourite post of the year, this would be my instinctive choice. Jeffrey Lazarus and Amy Steigerwalt discuss their new book, Gendered Vulnerability: How Women Work Harder to Stay in Office, which argues that women’s perception of a more difficult electoral landscape leads them to adopt distinct, and more constituent-oriented, legislative strategies than their male counterparts. It is a fascinating insight into the challenges faced by women in running for, securing and retaining office. A similar blog on the UK experience, entitled Strategies for Success, was written by Leah Culhane in November. Continue reading →

Widespread negative reactions to Theresa May’s Brexit deal have focused increasing attention on a possible further EU referendum. With MPs appearing poised to vote down the Withdrawal Agreement, a referendum could provide a way out of the apparent deadlock. But how would it work in practice? Ahead of the parliamentary debate, Meg Russell and Alan Renwick summarise the conclusions of their recent report on this topic.

When the Constitution Unit published The Mechanics of a Further Referendum on Brexit in October, it was still unclear if the government would successfully reach a deal with the EU, what that deal would contain, or how parliament and the public would react. Now that those facts are known, increasing numbers of MPs are demanding that the Brexit issue be returned to the public in a fresh referendum. But many unanswered questions about the practicalities remain. Here, we offer short responses to the most pressing of those questions, drawn from our report, to inform the parliamentary and growing public debate.

1. Is a referendum possible in the time available?

To hold a referendum, the UK parliament must first pass legislation. Before the bill leaves parliament, the Electoral Commission must assess the ‘intelligibility’ of the wording of the proposed referendum question – which usually takes ten weeks. This limits the ability to pass a bill very rapidly. Once the bill has received royal assent, sufficient time must be set aside to allow the Electoral Commission to designate lead campaigners, and for the campaign to take place.

In total, we estimate that the whole process – from introducing legislation to polling day – could be compressed to around 22 weeks. This is significantly less time than for previous referendums: for example the equivalent gap for the 2016 EU referendum was 13 months. But similar levels of urgency did not apply in these earlier cases.

The timetable could potentially be compressed even further, but doing so would risk delegitimising the result of the referendum – it is important given the sensitivity of the topic that the legislation is seen to be fully scrutinised, the question fair, and the campaigns adequately regulated. Continue reading →

Citizens’ assemblies are gaining increasing attention in the UK and elsewhere. The country with most experience of using them at national level is Ireland. The Constitution Unit therefore recently hosted a seminar exploring lessons for the UK of Ireland’s citizens’ assemblies with two of Ireland’s leading experts. In this post, Hannah Kaufman draws out five key insights.

Ireland possesses the most experience of citizens’ assemblies at the national level: the Irish Constitutional Convention of 2012–14 resulted in the 2015 referendum on same-sex marriage; and the Irish Citizens’ Assembly of 2016–18 led to this year’s referendum on abortion. Last week’s Constitution Unit seminar on Ireland’s experience of citizens’ assemblies therefore provided a valuable and timely opportunity to learn lessons. The speakers were two of Ireland’s leading experts on the subject – Professor David Farrell of University College Dublin and Dr Jane Suiter of Dublin City University. This post reflects on five key insights from their presentations.Continue reading →

This week’s Labour Party conference leaves a further Brexit referendum firmly on the political agenda. In the sixth of a series of posts on the mechanics of such a vote, Jess Sargeant, Alan Renwick, and Meg Russell examine what rules and regulations should govern the referendum process, arguing that important changes are needed to facilitate a fair and transparent campaign.

If a further referendum on Brexit is held, the rules governing how it is conducted would be of utmost importance. The UK’s standing legislation on referendums – the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act (PPERA) 2000 – is both incomplete and in some respects out of date. As explained in a previous post, a new referendum would require fresh legislation. This therefore needs to fill in the gaps and update the rules to reflect the realities of modern campaigning. The natural starting point would be the legislation that paved the way for the 2016 referendum – the European Union Referendum Act 2015. But even that has deficiencies. This post examines key points that new referendum legislation would need to address. It also considers non-legislative changes that could improve the referendum campaign.

The franchise: who should be able to vote in a further referendum?

The franchise for referendums in the UK is not specified in PPERA, so would need to be defined in the legislation for a further Brexit referendum. The 2016 referendum franchise included all those eligible to vote in UK parliamentary elections, plus members of the House of Lords and EU citizens resident in Gibraltar. Some proponents of a second referendum argue this should be extended to 16- and 17-year-olds and EU citizens resident in the UK.

There are good arguments for extending the franchise, and precedent for doing so: 16- and 17-year-olds and EU citizens resident in Scotland could vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. But – despite attempts to change this in parliament – the 2016 EU referendum legislation did not extend the right to vote to these groups, and consistency matters. If it appeared that the result of the 2016 referendum had been overturned because the franchise had been changed, many Leave supporters would view this outcome as illegitimate. As such, the franchise for any further referendum should be the same as for the 2016 vote.

How might referendum regulation be improved?

The referendum regulations in PPERA have not been substantively amended since they were introduced 2000. Since then, five referendums have been held, and the nature of communication and campaigning has changed significantly.Continue reading →

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The Constitution Unit in the Department of Political Science at University College London is the UK’s leading research body on constitutional change.

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